


Could Have Been

by tunglo



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 13:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12277131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunglo/pseuds/tunglo
Summary: What they have is only a mockery of what could have been.





	Could Have Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



They never speak during these encounters, not beyond the necessities, and in some ways it reminds him of those months Ed spent as his club centerpiece. The lonely hours when the place was all but deserted and he was free to talk to the man who had stolen his heart, his audience rapt but uncaring. 

Silent yet judging.

In the present it isn’t ice but coolness which puts barriers between them. There is no trust, no true warmth, only the heat of their bodies and the frantic need for completion.

It could have been so very different, that is what Oswald believes in moments of weakness. They could have been partners. Equals. They could have ruled Gotham together, civic society and the underworld alike, and he would have seen to it that Ed never doubted the sincerity of what he felt for him.

He had scoffed at the idea of love, once. Had ignored his mother’s warnings about the damage it could do. The pain it could inflict on those who couldn’t let go of it. He had thought himself above it, had been too smug and too self-assured, and as a result it had brought him lower than he had ever believed possible.

Love still holds him in its stranglehold, even now, and Oswald hates Ed so much for it sometimes he wishes it was was all over.

He imagines the flash of fear in Ed’s eyes. The judgement and the betrayal, face pale to contrast all the better with the vivid red of the blood on his lips. His hands shaking, perhaps, where they tentatively clutched at the handle of his switchblade. Pressed against a bullet wound, or pulled urgently at the ligature around his neck, growing tighter and tighter.

Ed can see it in his own eyes, Oswald thinks. He repays it in kind. Leaves finger shaped bruises behind on his flesh, and holds him in place by his throat. Squeezes until Oswald can’t draw breath, until there are spots dancing across his vision, then lets his touch turn soothing.

Mocking.

That is all these encounters will ever be - a mockery of a life that could have been.

It’s not enough to stop it from happening over and over again, though he tells himself that each and every time will be the last. Every whimper pulled from his lips, and every thrust of Ed's hips, primal and desperate.

He doesn’t need Ed.

Doesn’t need the physical relief he offers nor the tenuous - transient - truces it usually leads to.

He can take Ed down any time he likes. Remove the threat he poses, once and for all, and begin the process of forgetting he had ever yearned for anything other than control and power.

“You’ll never do it,” Ed tells him one night, as he fixes his clothing and the taste of their kisses turns to ashes in his mouth, “love made us the men we are.”

They both remain alive, at least, and sometimes - when memories weigh heavy on his shoulders and there are no convenient distractions to take it out on - Oswald tells himself that has to mean something.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/). :)


End file.
